The power of people: how markets and human ingenuity can save the planet.

AuthorBailey, Ronald
PositionThe Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet - Book review

The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet, by Ramez Naam, University Press of New England, 352 pages, $29.95

"We are a plague on the Earth," declared the famous British TV naturalist David Attenborough in the January issue of Radio Times. "It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us."

This is not a new warning. Would-be prophets of doom, from 19th-century population-growth alarmist Thomas Robert Malthus to popular 20th-century starvation forecaster Paul Ehrlich, have been preaching imminent eco logical catastrophe for centuries now. All their prophecies have failed to materialize. Is there any reason to believe that Attenborough is any different?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Probably not, argues Ramez Naam in The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. Naam, a professional technologist, is no cockeyed optimist. He takes seriously the environmental challenges that confront humanity, from man-made global warming to the depletion of fisheries, fresh water, and forests. He believes (as I do not) in peak oil, the idea that global oil production is almost maxed out and will soon begin an unrelenting decline. Nevertheless, his book's basic argument is that "it's possible for humanity to live in higher numbers than today, in far greater wealth, comfort, and prosperity, with far less destructive impact on the planet than we have today."

Naam, a former executive at Microsoft, where he worked on Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook, is a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is also the author of More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (2005) and the science fiction novel Nexus (2012). In The Infinite Resource, Naam argues that human ingenuity combined with the incentives of free markets can yield a world of "almost unimaginable wealth, health, and well-being." Knowledge, he writes, "acts as a multiplier of physical resources, allowing us to extract more value (whether it be food, steel, living space, health, longevity, or something else) from the same physical resource (land, energy, materials, etc.)."

Take agriculture. Ten thousand years ago it took an average of 3,000 acres to feed one hunter-gatherer; farmers today can feed one person using less than one-third of an acre. "Our...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT